I
follow with interest the young earth/old earth debates presented in the ASA
Journal. One of the most recent articles on this issue is by Robert C. Newman
entitled "Scientific and Religious Aspects of the Origins Debate,"
Sept. 1995, Vol. 47, No. 3. To date, I have not noticed any of the authors using
the argument put forth by the MIT physicist Gerald Schroeder (who is also a
Hebrew scholar) in his recent paperback, Genesis and the Big Bang, Bantam
Books, 1990 (paperback, 1992). In his second chapter entitled "Stretching
Time," he presents Einstein's time dilation argument to match the literal
six day creation record of Genesis 1, with the 15-billion year astrophysical
estimates based on the Big Bang Theory. The key to Schroeder's discussion is
that prior to Adam, there were no human beings to measure the passage of time.
Until Adam appeared on day six, God alone was watching the clock, and in his
frame of reference (close to the speed of light!) six 24-hour days are
equivalent to 15-20 billion years from human-Adamic frame of reference, i.e.

deltaT (Divine) = deltat (human) [1-v2/c2]0.5

As soon as Adam was created, the earth, where
man dwells, started to operate in the same space-time reference frame as its
Creator. At this point, the chronology of the Bible and the flow of time on
earth became one.

Time dilation has been proven many times over
in experiments conducted to validate Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
(eg., Hafale, J. and K. Keating, "Around the World Atomic Clocks; Predicted
Relativistic Time Gains" Science 177 (1972) 166-168). A classic
example, of course, is the time dilation experienced by mu-mesons traveling the
earth's atmosphere at almost the speed of light. To the observer on the ground,
200 microseconds pass as the mu-meson traverses the 60 km. distance from the top
of the atmosphere, where they are formed, to the earth's surface. To the mu-meson,
however, traveling close to the speed of light, the elapses time is 4.5 seconds.
For the same single event two totally different times elapse!

I would be curious to know if ASA members have
considered the above option, so ingeniously presented by Schroeder in his book,
as a means of reconciling the six 24-hour day creation story of Genesis 1 with
the billion year estimates evidenced form astrophysical observation.